10A NEWS SPACE RECREATION
SPACE RECREATION
THE UNIVERSITY OF HARLY KANSAS
THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 2007
New Mexico residents resist billionaire's plan for spaceport
ASSOCIATED PRESS
UPHAM, N.M. — Billionaire Richard Branson looks at a bleak and featureless expanse of the New Mexico desert and sees the perfect spot on which to build the future
- a $198 million launch complex that would blast paying tourists into space.
Whether enough folks around here share his vision remains to be seen.
Spaceport America, as sketched out by Branson, would be funded by
$198 million in state, local and federal money. The first rocket flights would be in 2009 and would initially be suborbital trips that would offer five minutes of weightlessness at about $200,000 per person. Eventually, the spaceport could offer trips into orbit and beyond.
But in poor southern New Mexico's ranching country, some say they have no intention of paying for some rich people's thrills.
On Tuesday, residents of Dona Ana County voted on a proposed quarter-cent sales tax increase critical to the project. The tax increase, which would raise a projected $49 million, led by a mere 238 votes out of 17,168 cast, with 541 provisional ballots still to be counted. A final count is expected Thursday.
"I do not see any reason that every time I buy a dress for my wife I should have to pay more taxes," grumbled George Gandara, a 63-year-old business owner in Las Cruces, about 60 miles south of the spaceport site.
Carol Garcia, 52, of Las Cruces,
said "It's just a rich man's dream
Rick Homans, New Mexico's economic development director, said he was expecting a wider margin of victory.
that he needs us to help pay for. If it's your dream, build it yourself."
"On one hand, there is a healthy skepticism and a great deal of caution about the project," he said. "And on the other hand, there is a lot of optimism for what it could do for the state."
Will Whitehorn, a spokesman for Branson's Virgin Galactic in London, said Wednesday that the
company would not comment until all the ballots had been counted. But Homans said the defeat of the tax increase would probably doom the project.
"Realistically, the project would unravel, very likely," he said.
State leaders, including Democratic presidential hopeful Gov. Bill Richardson, who toured the area last week in a late-hour push for tax, have pinned southern New Mexico's economic fate on the spaceport. Homans said the project would do no less than mark New
Mexico as "the birthplace of the second space age."
The 27-square-mile site, which would be near White Sands Missile Range, where the U.S. launched its first rocket after World War II, would include a 10,000-foot runway with adjoining terminals and hangars.
The big runway would be able to handle the kinds of planes that take spaceships up to 60,000 feet, where they could then be launched.
There also would be an area to launch rockets vertically.
Final 3 Days! MANUFACTURER'S DIAMOND SAMPLE 50% OFF SALE!
OVER 200 STYLES TO CHOOSE FROM!
0% Financing on all purchases of 399.00 or more for 12 months *W.A.C.
Mans Diamond and Black Onyx Ring:
Value $500
SALE $250
VALUE= manufacturers suggested retail prices based on Midwest retail markets. Items not necessarily sold at this price.
Hurry In...Limited Time Only!
Value cost-suggested retail.
TGW=Total Gem Weight. Photographs enlarged.
Hurst FINE DIAMONDS
OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK
785-749-5552 | www.hurstdiamonds.com | Pine Ridge Plaza 3140 Iowa St. (Next to Bath & Body Works)
*W.A.C. with approved credit
---